Blazers rally for road win

Thursday, February 19, 2009

STEVE IRVINE

News staff writer

NEW ORLEANS - UAB head coach Mike Davis called it a few
weeks ago. On Wednesdayit became official.

"I said it from the beginning, no matter what Houston
did, if we win out, we finished tied for second," Davis
said. "We control what happens to us. Nobody else
controls what happens to us. We've just got to take it
one game at a time."

UAB's one-game at a time approach resulted in a 76-70
victory over Tulane at Fogelman Arena before a few hundred
fans.

The Blazers (18-8 overall, 8-3 C-USA) also happened to get
a second victory of sorts on Wednesday when Houston dropped
a 88-83 decision at Marshall.

The Cougars entered the game in a second-place tie with UAB
but the Blazers headed home in second place alone with five
games left to play.

For a while, though, it looked like the Blazers might
suffer a hard-to-overcome loss to a Tulane team that entered
with an RPI of 234, according to RealTimeRPI.com. The Green
Wave (10-15, 4-8) controlled the boards early on, claiming
22 of the first 30 rebounds, and used a 11-0 run to take a
35-24 lead with 3:13 left in the first half.

Panicking at that point was certainly an option for the
Blazers. Instead, though, they reacted like a veteran team.

"We've been in that situation before,"
Vaden said. "We've been down and we came back.
We've been in every type situation before. That's
good for us in times like this."

Vaden hit a 3-pointer to end the 11-0 run by Tulane and
the Blazers had the deficit trimmed to 40-34 at halftime.

The key to weathering the run, as well as making the plays in the second half to win, was balanced scoring. Vaden, Lawrence Kinnard, Paul Delaney III and Channing Toney each reached double figures and Howard Crawford had seven key points....